Russia-Ukraine Invasion
Out of context: Reply #1705
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- yuekit-1
Is it time to reevaluate the Edward Snowjob incident?
Like a lot of people I was sympathetic to this tech libertarian movement of Snowden and Wikileaks in the beginning. But what most people ignored at the time is that Snowden didn't just reveal the NSA surveillance program, which IMO was good to bring to light.
Instead he took an estimated 1.5 million classified docs, including military secrets he claimed were needed to corroborate existence of this program. Most of them were not from the NSA at all.
Snowden went to Hong Kong, where he loudly announced his actions and his possession of these documents. He stayed with an unnamed family in Hong Kong who reportedly sheltered him, then flew to Russia on a commercial flight. He claims he didn't bring the docs to Russia but instead handed all of them over to...Glenn Greenwald, and in retrospect you have to ask if that's better or worse.
Even if Snowden was totally sincere in his actions, clearly this was incredibly irresponsible. He was just a tech guy at the NSA, he doesn't know all the capabilities foreign intelligence services have.
Following the Snowden incident is when everything started to go wrong in the world -- Trump's election, a further massive hack where someone was found to have infiltrated highest levels of the US government in late 2020.
But what's most disturbing is Russia announcing the granting of citizenship to Snowden now, ahead of this fraudulent attempted annexation of Ukrainian territory. They are clearly sending a message, whether it's a bluff or not. Meanwhile Snowden says nothing, either about this not so veiled nuclear threat or the war in Ukraine. Seems he's not the principled whistleblower in all situations.
- Right now people are having fun mocking Snowden on Twitter... you're going to get conscripted etc, but the true consequences of his actions could be much worse.yuekit
- IIRC he was in transit to Ecuador (?) when his US passport was revoked, stranding him in Russia. He's been stuck there ever since.monNom
- Stellarwind hack was almost certainly a byproduct of the close integration of state, intelligence, and industry which is the very thing Snowden was warning of.monNom
- In summary, this theory is a bit silly.monNom
- I didn't say Stellar Wind hack was definitely a product of other countries gaining this info. But how do you explain walking off with 1.5 million documents?yuekit
- If he wanted to call attention to NSA surveillance, he could have done what every other whistleblower did and just leaked it to the press.yuekit
- Instead he decided to go to China with those docs, seems incredibly naive to think intel services wouldn't all be going after this 30 year old NSA employee.yuekit
- Who was carrying all these military and intel secrets on a USB thumb drive. At the time I was more sympathetic to Snowden but it's pretty indefensible isn't it?yuekit
- Also in terms of revoking his passport, they did while he was in Hong Kong hoping to strand him there. China let him board the plane anyway.yuekit
- Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras were the press. It was the Guardian and Washington Post he was leaking to. They won a Pulitzer prize.monNom
- lol, yeah he claims he gave all the docs to this guy... that's what I was getting at.
https://i.imgur.com/…yuekit - What's the latest shit we can throw at Snowdon? Something to do with Russia as everyone hates them now, great, that will do, the idiots will believe anything.Chimp
- Why are they highlighting this now and not before?Chimp
- Who's they? Russia just granted him citizenship, that's why people are discussing it.yuekit